Creating a lactation record for tracking milk production
A lactation record will always be bound by the date the lactation started (Date of Freshening) and the Date Dried (day after the last milking for the lactation). The Lactation record's bounding dates will control when the animal displays in the Add Daily Milk Records batch entry form and the Currently in Milk report.
An animal cannot have two active lactation records at the same time. When adding a new Lactation record to an animal with an active (Current) Lactation, the system will first display the Edit Lactation form for the Current Lactation so the Date Dried can be added. Upon saving that form, the new Add Lactation form will display.
Learn more about adding back-to-batch lactations
Create Lactation
There are two ways to create a Lactation:
- By going to the Milk page and clicking the Add Lactation link
- Selecting to create a lactation when adding the animal's kidding record
Pre-filled Lactation form fields
Regardless of which flow is used, most of the Add Lactation form will be pre-filled based on information already in the animal's record. This allows you to simply submit the form if no edits are required. The pre-filled values are based on the following:
- Date of Freshening = Last Kidding date if the animal has a kidding record
- Age at Freshening = Animal's age in years and months based on the animal's Date of Birth
- Lactation Number = Incremented based on the Lactation number of the most recent Lactation; blank if the animal has no Lactation record
- Date to be Dried = Automatically calculated at 305 days after Date of Freshening
Other than the Age at Freshening, all fields are editable and can have the values deleted, and only the Date of Freshening is required.
If the Date of Freshening is changed, the Age at Freshening will automatically recalculate and the Date to be Dried will prompt if you want to update the Date to be Dried based on the updated Date of Freshening. Clicking Yes will update that Date to be Dried; clicking cancel will leave the existing value in the field:
Creating a Lactation from the animal's Milk page
To add a Lactation from animal's Milk page, open the animal's Folder, go to the Milk tab and click the Add Lactation link. If the animal does not have a Current Lactation, the Add Lactation form will display; if the animal has a Current Lactation, the Edit Lactation form will display so the Current Lactation can be closed prior to adding the new Lactation
Creating a Lactation while adding a kidding event
When checking the Create Lactation Record checkbox prior to saving the Kidding record, the Add Lactation form will display after the kidding is saved. The Date of Freshening will be pre-filled with the kidding date, and the other fields will be automatically filled based on the information in the animal's record.
Add Lactation flow when the "Create Lactation Record" checkbox is selected when adding a kidding, showing the kidding date pre-filled in the Date of Freshening field, and other automatically filled filed based on the animal's existing Lactation records.